


Stuck in the Climb

by Pippin



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War Two, Angst, Character Death, Code Name Verity, M/M, Not A Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 07:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11915961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippin/pseuds/Pippin
Summary: They're afraid and exhausted, alone, but fighting.  Flying in silver moonlight in a plane that can't be landed, stuck in the climb—alive, alive, ALIVE.





	Stuck in the Climb

**_“I am in the Special Operations Executive because I can speak French and German and am good at making up stories, and I am a prisoner in the Ormaie Gestapo HQ because I have no sense of direction whatsoever.”_ **

The first thing that Sid noticed was that everything hurt.  This realization was quickly followed by the discovery that he was bound, able to wriggle about but not really move beyond that.  There was a pole at his back, cold against what was uncomfortably bare skin, with his hands on the other side, bound with what felt like rough rope.

_ Think, Sid. _

Sid wracked brains that felt more than a bit like scrambled eggs, trying to piece together fragmented memories to figure out where he was.

It took a moment, but then it hit him.  France.  He was in France.  He was in France and he was a Nazi prisoner and he had no idea what had happened to his best friend—his  _ boyfriend _ .

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Sid whispered, memories returning in a violent wave of emotion and fear and panic.  Camp X.   His time in occupied Europe before being stationed in England, helping to train SOE operatives.  The blasted Soviet pilot he had been drawn to like a moth to a flame.  Being sent to occupied territory himself to be a spy and undercover radio operator.  Forgetting to look before crossing a street and nearly getting run over by a French van full of French chickens, being saved by a fucking Gestapo agent, being flustered enough to drop his carefully cultivated French accent.  

_ Rookie mistake, Crosby.   _ Sid was far from a rookie; in contrast, he had been an extremely successful undercover agent and aid to the Resistance in Eastern Europe.  God, he should have known so much better than to make a  _ stupid _ mistake like the one that had gotten him caught.

“Flight Officer Crosby, I understand,” said a smooth voice underscored with a crisp German accent.  Sid looked up, looked into the eyes of his captor, standing right over where Sid himself sat, bound and more naked than not.  The face glaring back at him would have been handsome were it not for the fact that he was a Nazi, that he was holding Sid captive, that everything that might have once been good about him was twisted by hatred and evil.

“I am SS-Hauptsturmführer Lorenz.  I think we can make a deal of sorts.”

Sid glared at him.  “I’m not in the business of making deals with Nazis,” he spat back, the German words bitter on his tongue.

Lorenz tilted his head, surprisingly calm for an SS officer with a prisoner mouthing off to him.  “I don’t think you would like the consequences of refusing my single offer of leniency.”  He pulled the door open just slightly, gesturing to someone on the other side.  Another man entered, handed Lorenz a stack of photographs, then left again.

Lorenz crouched beside Sid.  “Would you like to see the fate of your pilot?”  He didn’t give Sid a chance to answer, just shoved the first photo in front of his face.  

It was Geno’s plane, that was for sure.  He clung stubbornly to flying a Soviet plane, his only allowance to his change of service the insignia painted on the side.  Sid had been in and around that plane more times than he could count, hanging around talking to Geno.  It twisted his heart to see it in scraps, twisted his heart to think of Geno’s reaction to losing his most prized possession.  Then Lorenz changed the photograph to the next in the stack and barely managed to get out of the way before Sid was vomiting all over the floor where he had just been standing.

The body in the plane was torn up and burned beyond recognition, but there was no mistaking the insignia on the jacket.  Geno had always worn his ATA patch alongside a pin that marked him as a Soviet fighter pilot, or a former one.  Geno had always refused to talk about what had caused him to leave the Soviet air force; all Sid knew that there was something about Finland in there somewhere but that Geno was still fiercely proud of his Russian identity and his past flying for the Soviets.  No one other than Geno wore that specific combination of insignia.

God, Geno was  _ dead _ .  Sid had been prepared for the possibility of losing Geno, but never like this.  Geno was an ATA pilot, not a fighter pilot, not cleared for combat situations--not anymore.  He technically wasn’t allowed to have been flying Sid to France in the first place, and now he was dead because of bending the rules.

Sid retched again, trying to get the image of the body—he couldn’t think of it as Geno—out of his head.  Lorenz, in contrast, looked incredibly satisfied, pleased with himself.  Sid was sure that he had gotten exactly the reaction that he had been hoping for, and then he pushed it further, showing Sid the rest of the pictures of the crash.  The pictures of the body, close up and personal.  Sid wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that Geno’s face had been burned beyond recognition—on one hand, he didn’t have to actually look at Geno dead, but, on the other hand, he was missing what was probably the last chance in his life to see his boyfriend’s face.

“Now, that deal,” Lorenz said.  Sid looked up at him through vision blurred with tears, still not ready to accept the possibility of any sort of deal.

“You tell us what you know.  You can buy certain amenities from code—your clothes, a bath, food.  And you get to prolong your miserable life.  I’ll be back in an hour for your response.”

Sid was left alone, freezing, so hungry and thirsty, next to a puddle of his own sick, and deliberating his response.  It took a while to come to a final decision, but Sid knew what he had to do.

Sid wasn’t sure that it actually was an hour later when Lorenz returned, but he knew that his perception of time was skewed while held captive.

“Well?” Lorenz demanded.

Sid’s stomach twisted and he hated himself, but it was the best option.  

“I’ll do it.  I’ll take your deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the wonderful book Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. If you know the book, you know where this is going. I'm sorry.
> 
> Wow, it's hard being a WWII history fan right now. Like, I promise to everyone that I'm reading "The Hitler Book" because I'm a huge history nerd, not because I'm a fucking neo-Nazi, and that all the WWII and Nazi related searches in my history is for this fic.


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